A Handmaid’s Tale is at best a gripping story about the struggle to survive in an oppressive society and at worst an illustration of a speculatively possible scenario. That is literary speculation after all. Alternate histories are really interesting and it's always fun to think about what could happen should some dreadful thing suddenly happened. Personally, I believe that man doesn’t need an excuse to be cruel, just the opportunity. To be clear when I say man I mean humankind, not men. So when the entirety of women becomes a literal baby making machine they are commoditized, with seals of approval and everything. Failing the screening process by being lesbian, crazy, or rebellious is to make oneself a burden to this cruel society.
In other words, literary speculation is great so long as the dystopias stay fictional. Its like thinking about what would happen if Japan didn’t attack the US in WWII, theoretically the US and Nazi Germany would have become buds since they liked out the US basically eradicated Native American populations and forced them out of their homelands in the westward expansion of the nation. Crazy stuff, isn’t it?
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